A somewhat unfair title; the person in question is Marcel Leroux and the “death” is the deletion of his wiki page. The “sales” is his wacko views on GW. I don’t think ML is particularly interesting – wiki certainly thought not – but perhaps the way wiki deals with minor characters is.

Background: anyone is free to create a new page on wikipedia (there is probably a brief qualification period, but this is a trivial barrier), but there are various mechanisms for getting rid of pages that are junk, just offensive, or for some reason better not present. Any admin can delete a page; there is a whole page about criteria for speedy deletion.

But sometimes a page exists, about a real person or event, and there is doubt about whether the page is desirable or not. Perhaps they or the incident appear insufficiently notable. You can look at WP:AFD if you care to. Note that deletion debates are generally closed by admins who like doing that kind of thing, and almost always by people who don’t know anything about the subject to hand. They aren’t supposed to know; they just evaluate the arguments given (its not supposed to be a vote, either, though weight of numbers usually counts; its supposed to be weight of argument). If a page gets deleted and you disagree, there is a review mechanism. If a page doesn’t get deleted and you disagree, you can always try again. The page about me has been nominated 5 times (last infobox, click the “show” tab).

In this case: we’re on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marcel Leroux which (as you’ll see) was closed as The result was delete. Ultimately, “fails WP:N” is a very difficult argument to get around, and the humming and hawing about maybe possibly meeting a criterion or two of WP:ACADEMIC is not supported by consensus (even its advocates don’t seem to really believe it).

WP:N is his notability. This comes up in the rationale for deletion by the nominator [update: which, perhaps I should point out, wasn’t me], which was I couldn’t find significant coverage in google scholar or books. Google news returns various hits to various individuals. More specifically to the scientist I only found a good amount of passing mentions in the news sources (some of which were comments) but nothing providing significant coverage. And indeed, if you look for him he doesn’t show up much, with no coverage at all in what wiki calls “reliable secondary sources”: newspapers, books by other people, and so on. Unfortunately I forgot to webcite the page before it was deleted [update: its temporarily undeleted at DRV, so now cited in case it goes again] (aha, but one of the WUWT regular wackos did copy it, so here is a webcite of the copy), but here is a pic from google’s cache, and if you click through you’ll get to the article text.

If you look, the article is almost entirely sourced to himself. My “delete” rationale is that the article was only started in order to push Leroux’s wacko views on GW: essentially all of the lede is about his views and his books; not about his career. This view is supported by a contribution from one of his boosters on the AFD talk page. Meanwhile, if you try to follow his career then the criteria becomes WP:ACADEMIC which tries to make sense of the thorny question of whether random academic X is notable enough viewed as an academic only. And he fails that: just writing a textbook isn’t enough.

For those interested in puzzles and sleuthing (are you out there John?) the issue of his “chevalier (knight) in the Ordre des Palmes académiques” might be worth chasing down. Someone uploaded what is supposed to be a copy of his citation (webcite) in a desperate and ultimately failed attempt to show how notable he is. But is it genuine? Note that even if genuine he’s still not notable; this is just a puzzle, not a matter of significance. I don’t know what the genuine certificates are supposed to look like. There are a couple of things that look a bit dodgy about it, but nothing definitive: the “69 – LYON -” is odd – shouldn’t there be something after the second dash? The failure to get all the text centered. And the inconsistent spacing around “LEROUX”.

Comments

69-Lyon seems odd but is nevertheless correct : it is the administrative number of the department (a French administrative division) Rhone, which includes the town of Lyon. A postal code would have been longer, for example: 69000 Lyon.
“Chevalier des Ordres Académiques” might be an impressive combination of words, but it is a quite common distinction, mostly for old teachers, head teachers or professors. “Chevalier des Ordres Académiques” is only the 1st Grade.
Note that the nominations are decided by the Minister of Education, who was at that time Luc Ferry, a sort of right-wing ex-philosoph, with basically the same ideas than James Delingpole about environmentalism.

To be clear, Marcel Leroux is only notable in the very confined French skeptical blogosphere (the amusing French version of the Wikipedia page of Marcel Leroux is obviously the creation of one of his zealots).

[But isn’t the structure of the “69 – LYON -” odd? It looks like there should be something after the second “-“. Though perhaps its just a form thing -W]

But isn’t the structure of the “69 – LYON -” odd? It looks like there should be something after the second “-“. Though perhaps its just a form thing -W

ISTM that there not only should be, but is, something after that second dash, namely the text on the line that follows. I am not French, but I do know that department numbers get used for many things. For instance, you can tell where a car is registered by the first two digits on the license plate, which are the department number.

The only thing I found odd at first glance was giving the city name (Lyon) rather than the department name, but I do not claim to be familiar with this form–I’ll defer to the earlier commenters who imply that this is normal practice.

So, I have read the LeRoux books. The first one on atmospheric circulation models and the second which contains much of the same model idea framed around global warming arguments.

LeRoux, who perished in 2008, made a number of errors, but also a number of contributions. I would not consider any of the arguments he made about AGW pertinent or accurate. Part of the problem was that LeRoux used no physics in his descriptions – they were more artistry than science.

But that is not to overlook the real contributions. LeRoux was right to point out the flaws in the linkage between wave theory and the surface polar front theory. While he overlooked the fact that atmospheric momentum peaks aloft, there are many aspects of climate for which consideration of surface air mass motion is critical. He was right to remind us that climatology falls into the trap of averages – will you please smack the next person that talks about the ‘Bermuda High’? and the ‘Hadley Cells’?

Most importantly, LeRoux reminds us the role that polar air masses play in the ITCZ and monsoons.

Watching long term animations of precipitable water reminds us that ‘cold fronts’ have a much longer life time than the identifiable periods of their mid-latitude passage.

Judging by the number of exclamation points in his writing, LeRoux was somewhat eccentric, and wrong about some things. But there is a long history of people wrong about some things and right about others.

[I haven’t read his books, or any of his work, but what you say fits roughly with what I’ve seen: he had some ideas, mostly in a few limited areas, that might be good or not. But his “contributions” to GW were not useful -W]

The entry could be either shortened or lengthened.
Including references without discussion can convey the wrong idea of the person’s contribution.

Consider the second reference. If you read the entry, you will not appreciate where this person is coming from until you download the abstract. It comes close to defending
Gerlich and Tscheuschner. * A longer entry would not hide that away but balance it with a reference to Eli et al’s peer reviewed discussion of GT.
—————
*. SOD is more nuanced.

Well content is not the point. If anything Kramm is not even a bog normal Professor from his publications and thus does not meet the qualifications of notability of academics. The same is true of his wife Nicole Mölders.

Leroux and Kramm — so unnotable that people meet up in backroom chats to discuss how to expurgate them.

You’d think the protection against unnotability would just be that no one would ever bother to search for them.

[Errm, we’re talking about “notability” in a technical sense: which is by the wiki criteria. I provided you with a link to those criteria. You could read it, and you might learn something -W]

But no, that’s not enough. After all, you wouldn’t want to risk the possibility that anyone would ever *accidentally* stumble upon such dangerous unnotability. And don’t tell me space is an issue — I can look at the giant talk article where you get together and discuss the lack of notability at length, but lord knows I can’t be allowed to see for myself what you all were discussing (and now blogging about).

[Errm, well actually you *can* be allowed to see, because I’ve provided you with a link to a copy. You did actually bother to read the post before commenting, didn’t you? -W]

Yes, wasn’t really meant for you, was more of just talking to myself. (“Gee, isn’t it odd that all the crazies have shown up? Let’s go have a google around. Oh, indeed, now I know why.”) Which, um, probably means it wasn’t worth a comment (perhaps ditto this one), but at least it’s not at risk for being in the bottom quartile of uselessness for this comment thread.

I cannot say anything but omg what are you so afraid of? That you might be wrong and have to disappear any opposition.
Sad, sick and unfortunately predictable. It will come back to bite you in the bum though.

BTW I notice that you as a totally unremarkable individual in comparison to Marcel Leroux is allowed to sport a Wiki page. How about you campaign to delete yourself?

[I completely ignore my (mainspace, not userspace) wiki page. If you bother to read my post you’ll find a link to the existing deletion discussions. If you read them, you’ll find out why my page was kept. If you read the AFD on Leroux, instead of relying on your preconceptions and lies at WUWT, you’ll find out why he was deleted; in brief he’s NN -W]

[…] to justify his own guilty feelings on the issue by posting an explanation on his own blog titled “Death of a Salesman”. I’m only a bystander in all this, but the Wikipedia deletion did pique my interest and I […]

You mean like everyone else on here (almost)?. Do we really want to leave ourselves open to your malicious ways?. Its OK though, I do not have a wiki page for the Ministry of Funny Consensus to delete.

You know William, its not so much what you believe as how you go about making your point. You may or may not be right in your convictions but by gum boy silencing the opposition is certainly not the way to prove your point. Many a notorious individual has tried that trick and none has succeeded, none.

[Attacks redacted.

As to the content: I’m not silencing anyone (your posts are all here, except for the one that was entirely content-free attacks). Leroux is certainly not being silenced. Again, we’re in irony territory: you’re free to post here, I’m banned from WUWT, for telling the truth about AW’s wiki-fantasies. But you don’t care about me being silenced, because when you claim to care about “silencing the opposition” you don’t really support free speech for your opposition at all -W]

I’d have thought a climatologist who was opposed to some of the major concepts of AGW would have been notable on that basis alone. (ie being one of a tiny minority of 3%, according to respected publications).

[Well its nice you realise that they are a tiny minority; many seem to fail to realise that. But no, that doesn’t make him notable by wiki’s criteria I’m afraid; you’d have to read them to see why -W]

Seems astonishing this is regarded as a matter of such minor importance that his very Wikipedian existence is extinguished?

[Again, you need to read the post. Wiki has regular problems with people creating silly articles about trivial subjects. And it has problems with “now can you delete an article on this person, who may not be very notable but is at least real, when you have an article on this pokemon character”. There is not agreement on this issue -W]

And fascinating also that whilst having no part in this expurgation Mr Connolly notes he ‘forgot’ to webcite it prior to its removal. A more plausible phrase would be; “and it never occurred to me for a moment that there would be any need to webcite it, as I never expected it would be deleted!”

[Now you stray into bad faith, as well as bad spelling and incorrect address, all of which reflect poorly on you -W]

words like wacko (yours) deluge of stupid (jbl) seem to me to be at least as “PA” as the part of my comment you removed. Your blog, so you choose the level of consistency you want to maintain, but please consider that when we choose which rules we want to apply on a case by case basis we tend to only be protecting our own stupidity.

[Yes, its my blog. If you don’t want to abide by the comment policy, you’re not obliged to comment -W]

erm, I’ve read wikipedia’s deletion rules including the specific portions regarding notability, and they certainly have subjective elements. I can see a stringent interpretation of them leading to the correct demise of LeRoux’s article, but it seems to me that the same level of stringency, if applied consistently, would likely lead to the deletion of your own, which you correctly and prominently point out is still there, leading anyone to the conclusion that you, William Connolley, are more notable than your pathetic old professorial hit victim.

[Attacks deleted. Warning: if you can’t keep a civil voice here, you need to go back to WUWT where profanity appears to be welcomed. As to the “victim” nonsense: you need to actually read the AFD -W]

[Have you considered reading the various AFDs in order to find out? I can’t see the point in spoon-feeding you. The information is all there, carefully linked -W]

Would you always delete someone’s page because you view their ideas as wacko?

[I’m not an admin. I can’t delete anyone’s page.

As for why Leroux was deleted: why can’t you just read the AFD, which contains the reasons why people thought it should be deleted, and the closing admin’s rationale, which I’ve even quoted here, for goodness sake? No-one said he should be deleted because his ideas were wacko: this is just some fantasy you’ve invented because you can’t cope with the awful truth: he was deleted because he isn’t notable -W]

W said “…..wiki’s criteria I’m afraid; you’d have to read them to see why -W…….”

Indeed. And I did read them. And criteria remain criteria. What we discussing here is whether or not the deletion met those criteria.

[Yes. But your proposal, which appears to be “anyone part of a tiny minority disagreeing with a mainstream idea is notable”, isn’t one of those criteria. As reading them would allow you to discover -W]

W said: “…..[Now you stray into bad faith, as well as bad spelling and incorrect address, all of which reflect poorly on you -W….”

And bad faith?
The phrase in question; “…. I forgot to webcite it (…first?)….” is notable because it contrasts with the tone and content of the whole article. (“ie he’s gone, but it was nothing to do with me…..”)

[Your notes he ‘forgot’ to webcite it prior to its removal. A more plausible phrase would be asserts that I’m lying. That is bad faith on your part -W]

Eli would like to point out that Stoat is a nasty character who gloated when Ethon, the poor bird, was AfDed. Don’t take it personal folks it’s just the nature of the beast. After all stoats are Bossed about by the Ferrets and Weasels, the Stoats know their place, but they’re not happy about it…Rabetts, OTOH, are pernickety and very excitable. They’ll say what’s on their mind.

“…..anyone part of a tiny minority disagreeing with a mainstream idea is notable”, isn’t one of those criteria…….. -W]……”

The point is there is some considerable debate going on in this world. He represented a significant part of one side of that debate. People will encounter his books, his comments, his opinions and seek more information on the man.

[All of that is wrong. There isn’t considerable (scientific) debate; the debate you’re seeing is in the meeja, pols, and blogs. And Leroux wasn’t a significant figure in the debate: you’d never heard of him before this, and neither had anyone else. And people won’t encounter his books, because they are un-notable too. AFAIK they contain no interesting ideas (re the GW debate); certainly in all this fuss no-one has put forward any interesting ideas he had -W]

The deletion of that information from Wikipedia at the extreme reading reeks of some sort of totalitarian approach to re-writing history, but it at the very least smacks of pettymindedness by supposedly well educated people.

[It seems that you (like so many others taking your part) can’t get very far without abusing language. No-one is re-writing history. And you seem to be incapable of understanding the most basic point: there have to be smoe kinds of standards of notability, and your man fails them -W]

Of course, in these days of websearch engines, such information is only a further few seconds search away, so the act does naught but draw attention to the deletion.

[Which is yet another reason why all your nonsense about freedom of speech and re-writing history is nonsense -W]

“…..A more plausible phrase would be asserts that I’m lying. That is bad faith on your part -W]…..”

[Note: I’ve had to correct your italics, above. By losing them you broke the sense -W]

I absolutely believe you are telling the truth when you say it wasn’t you. However my reading of your lapse in phrasing makes me suspect you knew it was coming … leaving open the possibility you encouraged the action or even that it was done on your behest.

[WTF are you talking about? I’m saying that *after* it was put up for deletion I intended to webcite it. Of course I knew it was up for deletion -W]

What those who deny that humans are responsible for today’s changing climate are admitting here is that their cause has no scientific basis, because, if it were, they would not be defending the inclusion of fourth raters in the Wikipedia. There is nothing these clowns (and Eli uses the word with purpose) have beyond their ostrich act.

There is considerable debate going on. Whether you consider it scientific or not is another matter.

The man was a climatologist, and held very strong opinions on the topic of AGW. The fact that some saw fit to expunge him from their domain can only indicate a couple of possibilities:

1. They are incredibly tidy and meticulous individuals who realized Wikipedia is running out of space, so combed through the criteria, and then the reference pages to find some insignificant characters who could be deleted.

Or 2. Someone did not like what he said, so garnered some support, invoked the ‘certain criteria’ which could be upheld with enough opinions, and deleted the information out of some kind of spite.

Whilst I am in favour of ‘free speech’ that is not the issue here: I simply think it odd that a source of reference would allow deletion of information on on a person from one side of a contentious debate, presumably by those on the other side of the debate.

[We’re going round in circles, because you refuse to read the basic sources and are instead relying on drivel from WUWT. “presumably by those on the other side of the debate” is wrong. You need to actually read the AFD before commenting on it. You must be familiar with the idea that if you talk about things which you know nothing about, you’re doomed to talk nonsense -W]

but that hardly matters. The fact that even that debate is contentious indicates, at least to me, he is ‘notable’.

If there are further more useful discussions on the matter, I’d be grateful if you’d point me to them.

And back to an earlier comment of yours: “…there have to be some kinds of standards of notability, and your man fails them -W]…”

Here you fall into the mistake of making an ‘absolute’ statement. Perhaps better phrased as “in the opinion of some, (Leroux) fails …etc….”

As you well know, especially in the field of science, stating things as ‘an absolute fact’ when they are not so clear, or perhaps are even just a plausible theory, leads to all sorts of contentious debate.

Now that you guys have disappeared Leroux from Wikipedia I have no Idea why you think his ideas were wacko and deserved to be censored. Frankly the idea that you are qualified to decide what is wacko about GW amazes me. You believe that there is something called a greenhouse effect that is warming up the world when that really is wacko. Consider this assertion of yours: we are constantly putting more and more carbon dioxide in the air and as a result the air will absorb more and more infrared radiation as time goes on. That is what you guys say is the source of the greenhouse effect which is warming up the world. To my knowledge none of you guys has actually measured how much the IR absorption by the real atmosphere has changed over time as a result of this process. But what if I told you that it is actually possible to measure it? This measurement has been done by the Hungarian scientist Ferenc Miskolczi. He used NOAA weather balloon observations that go back to 1948 and determined that the absorption of IR by the atmosphere did not change at all for 61 years straight. At the same time the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increased by 21.6 percent. This means that the addition of this much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. This is an empirical observation, not derived from theory like IPCC models all are. It overrides any wacko assertions calculated from theory that do not agree with it. Specifically, it overrides all predictions of warming based on the greenhouse theory. I think we can safely say that such predictions are nothing more than pseudo-science hyped up by the global warming movement. Unfortunately they have been and are being used as justification for various emission control laws. These laws have been passed under false pretenses and it is time to put an end to this. And by the way, you really ought to put a page about it into Wikipedia so the public will understand the scam they have been victimized by.

Thanks W. I have read it; a quite interesting discussion, but nothing complicated. Plainly one side of the argument is determined to have him removed, and the decision on notability is obviously subjective.

It in quite revealing regarding the politics and attitudes of prevailing Wikipedia editors. Citing criteria which are purely subjective does nothing to dispel an image of targeted bias .

To me it is astonishing in that despite the fact he was a published and cited Professor, and a climatologist opposed to the ‘mainstream’ viewpoint, there was actually a debate as to whether he is/was of any importance.

[Oh course it seems that way to you. He’s one of the very few actual climatologists that you could have called upon to support your minority views – although since you’d never heard of him before this, you would not actually have been able to do so -, naturally you are biased in his favour. Notice how you have, once again, omitted the key point: that the deletion decision was made by an uninvolved admin -W]

Some key arguments from the page are summarized below:

[No, you’ve got the wrong page again. This is from DRV -W]

“…..Overturn to no consensus and restore…..”

“…..Even after throwing out the suspicious accounts, the closest I can get is a “no consensus” decision – this makes no sense. …”

“……It isn’t a vote; your tally is irrelevant (reply to above)..”

“……. weight of argument was in my opinion slightly in favor of deletion but not enough to rise to the level of “rough consensus” as we use the term here at Wikipedia…”

(Re French Wiki)…”…. various claims of notability are a complete load of bollocks. (…: I do accept that he’s an academic with a doctorate and that he’s published various books. This doesn’t make him a significant figure in climatology.)..”

“..(are) …there are substantial book reviews for 2 or more of his 3 books, in which case he would meet WP:AUTHOR? In practice it’s a much looser criterion than WP:PROF., and very specifically does not require any expertise of any sort in the field in which the person writes, negating most of the delete arguments….”

“…….No legitimate reason is given for overturning the deletion…”

“…….The arguments for WP:PROF were weak. Those for WP:GNG even weaker…”

“……We regularly keep full professors just for being full professors. And we keep people with h-index much lower than this subject. … criteria …..re not being evenly applied here…”

$£¥£$££¥$£¥
Using both radiative transfer theory and radiosonde (weather balloon) observations to support his views, Miskolczi (2010) builds a case that the Earth’s total greenhouse effect remains constant over time.

While this might well be true, I do not believe he has demonstrated from theory why this should be the case.

His computation of a relatively constant greenhouse effect with 60 years of radiosonde observations is tantalizing, but depends upon the reality of high humidities measured by these sensors before the mid-1960s, data which are widely considered to be suspect. Even with today’s radiosonde humidity sensors, the humidity accuracy is not very high.
£¥£$£¥¥£££¥

conclusion: humidity is dominant and cannot be measured precisely, and co2 has only a minor role. bravo!

[Sigh. You can’t even read what Spencer wrote: how can you hope to understand anything? All you’re doing is cherry-picking words you like, and leaving the actual theory quite undigested -W]

“…..naturally you are biased in his favour. Notice how you have, once again, omitted the key point: that the deletion decision was made by an uninvolved admin -W….”

And, likewise, naturally you too are biased; against his inclusion.

And, likewise, unless your ‘uninvolved administrator is some type of super-being, he too has his biases and beliefs, which will affect his judgment. Besides which he will habitually and perhaps unconsciously be influenced by those he deals with, and trusts most, especially in areas where he has little expertise.

I’m quite sure a truly independent arbiter would very quickly agree that an unbiased publication would have to include the professor.

(Although I grant that being ‘unbiased’ may not be part of Wikipedia’s mission statement).

William M. Connolley is permitted to edit within the topic area of Climate change, but is prohibited from editing relating to any living person associated with this topic, interpreted broadly but reasonably. William M. Connolley is reminded to abide by all applicable Wikipedia policies in editing on this topic and that he remains subject either to further action by this Committee or (like all editors in this topic-area) to discretionary sanctions should he fail to do so.

That APTN story has him working with Kevin Annett, a Canadian whom I consider to be nuts &/or a con man. This video deals with some of his claims and activities (children did die at Indian residential schools in Canada, it’s a bad enough story as it is, but Annett makes extreme claims and abuses the trust some people have put in him.): http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2012/10/10/aptn-investigates-unmarked-graves-promo/

Grouping a Professor/climatologist with any other group you choose is basically hoping some of that mud sticks too.

But there is nothing wrong with LeRoux’s thinking:

He was arguing against a case (AGW) which has been put forward on the basis of four major arguments:

1. The mechanisms posited are plausible.
2. The ‘curves match’. (if we take a very tiny recent ‘snapshot’.)
3. We can model it.
4. A ‘majority of the experts’ support the theory, and it is so complicated the ‘mob’ really can’t understand or rationally discuss the topic.

Plausible, yes. Settled, No.

In my opinion, any scientist who thinks that is a settled science is approaching the whacko category.

Yes ….Do something! Anything! But do it now! ….. is a pretty lousy approach too.

I know. I was GM for a company that did a large Kyoto protocol project with a Japanese multinational. The pedantry of the processes involved massively inhibited the emissions reduction potential of the project, and the paperwork produced may have resulted in more CO2 output than any savings that will be made.

I was in Ukraine and Belarus countryside earlier this year, when it got down to minus 30 C. I’ve spent a lot of time in rural northern China where it routinely get down to these temperatures. There are many poor people in places such as this. Artificially more expensive energy is the last thing they need.

China perhaps is being most pragmatic in this area. Sensible central policies. Rapidly building large modern efficient coal fired power stations to replace millions of old dirty inefficient small furnaces. Rapidly building large efficient transport infrastructure – trains and modern highways, and hydro and nuclear power. Solar hot water is ubiquitous and battery powered scooters are everywhere as they are cheap enough for the poor, not overpriced and over regulated.

The Lomborgian whining for the poor would be impressive if they were followed by actual changes in their behavior. Other than that it is simply another tactic to poison the well. Color Eli unimpressed.

only true non-scientists dare to say that “science is settled”, that’s only a laymans’s primitive and wrong view of scientific thinking and attitude, as there are so terribly many in the pseudo-scientific discipline of “climatology” which is rather a religious church and totally corrupted by politics and mass media than a true scientific discipline like zoology.